Dreams May Not Come True
by July Storms
Summary: Hange knows something is wrong when she goes down to breakfast one morning and the smell makes her stomach churn. (Levihan; pregnancy!fic.) Ch2: Levi and Hange continue to deal with the pregnancy while remaining in the Survey Corps. Ch3: Death comes to the Survey Corps, and Levi and Hange deal with their loss. (Complete)
1. Castles, They Might Crumble

**Dreams May Not Come True**  
**Chapter One: Castles, They Might Crumble**

**Notes**: For Neal on his 27th birthday. May you have many more. This is somewhat canon-divergent (or might be made so, soon). There are three chapters; all three are already complete, and will be posted in a timely manner.

Special thanks goes out to **Hubedihubbe** on Tumblr.

* * *

Hange knows something is wrong when she goes down to breakfast one morning and the smell makes her stomach churn. She bites her lip and gets a plate anyway, gets it and pushes the eggs around with her fork trying not to feel sick.

"Hange?" Levi elbows her, and she stops to look at him.

Her mouth is dry. "Does it taste okay?" she asks.

He lifts one eyebrow as if he finds her behavior stranger than normal. "What?"

"Because it smells disgusting," she explains, and pushes her plate away.

"You don't eat enough." He pushes her plate back in front of her. "You can't eat just one fucking meal each day."

She doesn't want to eat it, but she shoves one forkful of the now-cold eggs into her mouth anyway. It's difficult to force the stuff down, but she does it with the help of some coffee.

The coffee is far too bitter and the eggs too greasy and she covers her mouth and groans when her stomach lurches.

"I-I think I'm sick," she manages to say, and practically trips as she tries to get up from her seat again.

Levi is staring at her and she hates it—hates herself, suddenly, too.

"Well," he says after a moment, "go take a shit or whatever it is you need to do."

She nods and tries to say that she'll see him during the morning drills, but can't get it out before she has to close her mouth again, afraid that she's going to lose the one little bit of food she's managed to swallow.

* * *

Levi knows something is wrong when Hange doesn't come to the morning drills.

He leaves one of the kids in charge and looks in Hange's office and her room and even in the library; it's not until he heads out the back door of the barracks that he finds her away from the building on her hands and knees being sick.

He takes her glasses off and pulls her bangs back away from her face, and doesn't say a fucking thing. He doesn't know what to say, anyway.

When she's done, he helps her up and into the washroom where she rinses her mouth out and splashes cold water on her face. The whole time she's got tears in her eyes like she's about to start crying. He ignores them.

"Levi?" she begins, and he's so afraid of what she's going to say next that he almost snaps at her.

"You're probably just fucking sick, four-eyes," he tells her, and gives her back her glasses. "Stay the fuck out of your workroom until you don't feel like such shit."

She bites her lip and follows him back to his room, the one they've been practically sharing for months, now. He tries not to look at her as he shoves her nightclothes at her, but he can't help it when he notices her fingers are trembling just a little bit.

"Levi," she tries again.

"Shitty glasses," he counters, and kicks a bucket up to the edge of the bed, "go to sleep."

He doesn't kiss her because she's just spent the last however-many minutes puking her guts up, but he does brush her hair back from her forehead. Her eyes flutter closed at his touch, and he hates that all he can think about is the fact that she doesn't have a fever.

* * *

It's useless to wish the dead back to life, but Hange wants nothing more than to talk to Nanaba or Petra or Mike right now. Even Auruo, who had actively disliked her, sounds almost appealing.

She just wants someone to talk to and she's scared to talk to Levi.

It's stupid.

_She's_ stupid.

By the time afternoon comes, she's pulled herself together a little more. Her stomach has stopped churning, and it helps her think more clearly. She spends the last hours of daylight waiting for Levi to come back and wondering if telling him anything at all is a good idea.

Of course it is, she finally decides. It's only fair. It's only _right_. She has to tell him the conclusion she's come to.

But the moment the doorknob turns, she bites her lip and tries not to think about what it is she has to say.

"Hey." It's the first thing out of Levi's mouth, and his expression turns concerned when he gets closer. He reaches out to touch her forehead, to brush back her hair again, but she flinches and she's not sure why. "What's the matter with you?"

She hates that she doesn't know how Levi is going to react to what she has to say, and her inability to predict his reaction makes it hard to keep her voice steady. But if she's going to say it, she needs to just fucking say it, so she blurts out, "I'm pregnant." And then, "I think." And finally, "I'm pretty sure."

She wonders if he's going to kick her out of his room, now, or if he's going to yell at her, or punch a wall, but all he does is sit down on the edge of the bed to tug off his boots.

"No fucking shit," he says as he sets them by the side of the bed, next to hers. It's not a question.

"You knew?" She hates that her voice comes out wobbly.

He shrugs and starts to work on his straps. "You never puke your fucking guts up like that, Hange. What else could it be?"

She swallows hard, fingers fisting in the blankets. "Do you want me to leave?"

His fingers stop messing with the harness strap across his chest as he turns to look at her. "What?"

"I don't know. Are you mad?"

"No," he says, but it's so curt that she's pretty sure he's at least a little upset.

"I thought…maybe you wouldn't want anyone else to know."

"As if I give a shit what anyone thinks of me," he tells her, standing up to get out of the harness. He drapes it over a chair and works on his cravat. "Or us." He slides the cloth out from under the collar of his shirt and hangs it up so that the fabric doesn't wrinkle. His fingers move to the top button of his shirt as he adds, "We're certainly not the only people in the Survey Corps who are fucking."

Her face reddens a little, but she doesn't look away from him. "I guess that's true," she says, and repeats her question: "Are you mad?"

"At you?" he asks after a long moment. When she nods, he says, "No," and this time it sounds convincing. "But the timing is shitty."

"I'm sorry." She doesn't even know why she's apologizing, but she does it anyway. "I didn't think I could—I mean…I thought the chances would be really low."

"Hange. It's fucking fine. Stop making such a big fucking deal out of it." He shrugs out of his shirt and folds it before he sets it in the laundry pile. "You don't sound like yourself and it's fucking weird."

"Sorry," she says again. "I just don't want you to, I don't know, hate me or anything."

He snorts and slips out of his pants before folding them, too. "Don't be fucking ridiculous."

"Okay."

She doesn't bring it up again. He knows more about her than anyone else alive; he knows about her childhood, and how the other kids looked at her, and he knows a little about the kinds of comments they'd make, but she doesn't know if Levi will ever understand that _he_ has become synonymous with _home_ for her, and that since they'd grown close, she'd started to worry about him, about _them_. About him deciding suddenly that she's not what he wants or dying in battle and leaving her like so many others had already done.

It's ridiculous and it's stupid and _she's stupid_, but she loves him too much and sometimes that makes her afraid.

By the time he slips into bed, Hange's already on her side. She wants to think about titans and experiments or even about the interesting flowers she'd seen on the last expedition outside the walls, but all she can do is imagine how they'll both fit in Levi's bed with her belly swollen.

She feels his fingers against her nose and realizes she's still wearing her glasses when he takes them off of her face. He folds them and sets them down carefully on the bedside table.

"Thanks," she whispers as he leans over to blow out the candle.

He stays facing that way, away from her, and she settles down with her back against the wall so they can both fit in his bed. Maybe napping earlier in the day had been a bad idea; sleep eludes her.

Apparently it eludes Levi, too, for he breaks the silence eventually with a soft, "Hey, shitty-glasses."

"Yeah?" she asks.

He reaches behind him, grabs her arm, and pulls it around his waist. "Stop fucking worrying."

"I'll try," she whispers, and pulls him back against her.

* * *

A couple of weeks pass before Hange asks him the one question he's not sure how to answer.

"When should I tell Erwin?"

It's the afternoon and the sunlight is weak; Levi knows snow will be falling any day, now. He turns from the side of the stables to look at Hange, and finds that she's staring off into space.

"Should I tell him at all?"

"I don't fucking know," he says, his coat feeling too restricting even though the air's certainly cold enough for him to need it. "It's not like you can hide it forever."

"Yeah. And I've been puking too much. The 3D maneuvering gear makes me so nauseous sometimes. He'll catch on sooner or later, even if he's not watching the practices."

Levi knows it's true; the brats had been giving Hange concerned glances and more than once, one of them had approached him themselves, asking if Squad Leader Hange was healthy enough to be doing drills.

"Don't say anything yet. Just in case."

The look she gives him is disbelief, but he ignores it. He ignores a lot of things for the first month, as if not thinking about them will make them go away. As if her cycle will come by any day and there won't be a fucking pregnancy to deal with at all.

It's his fault as much as hers; even if her cycle did whatever it wanted to, he should have pulled out. If nothing else, he should have held her hand or kissed her face instead of losing himself in her like a hormonal teenager.

He's a fucking idiot.

And telling Erwin is the one thing he's most worried about, though he acts like it doesn't matter when Hange asks.

At the end of the first month, he wakes up one cold morning to find Hange curled up against him. She hasn't slept in her own bed even once since she told him about the possibility that she was pregnant, and he finds some kind of stupid satisfaction in that.

He touches her face and Hange just smiles like the big dope that she is.

There is no running away from reality. Levi knows the truth: Hange's pregnant. She's pregnant and it's definitely his, and he has to tell Erwin. Has to tell him, because telling Erwin is the only chance Hange has of getting taken off active duty.

He starts when he feels her hand on his shirtsleeve, and realizes she's blinking at him sleepily.

"Hm?" she asks.

He pinches her cheek and buries her in the blankets. "Go back to sleep, stupid," he tells her, and gets out of bed.

* * *

Hange listens to him for once, but only because it's just barely dawn and she's still tired. She dozes off until the door to the room slams open, and then she's wide awake, heart pounding in her chest.

"Levi?" she asks, and her voice comes out sounding frightened. She doesn't know why.

"Sorry," he tells her, and opens his desk drawers for a while before he gets out a sheaf of paper. "It's nothing. No drills today."

She knows it's not _nothing_, but she doesn't make him answer. Instead, she falls back onto the bed and misses his presence beside her and tries to get her heartbeat to slow down again. At least it's nothing too bad. If it were an emergency, Levi would already be out the door with the rest of his gear.

He writes for a while, and when he's done he stands up and pushes his desk chair back in. "You hungry for breakfast?"

"I can get it," she tells him, rolling onto her side to look at him. His normally neat hair looks tousled, as if he's been running his fingers through it. "Come here."

He comes closer, but says, "I'll get it if you tell me what the fuck you want."

She reaches up and straightens his hair. "There," she says when she finishes.

"You want breakfast or not?"

Normally she'd be excited to tease Levi for offering to do something nice for her, but something's wrong. She decides to accept his kindness without question just this one time. "Bread would be nice."

"Sure," he says, but when he's at the door, she sits up.

"And butter!" she calls after him. "If there is any."

It doesn't take him long to return, and when he does, he hands her the plate and a cup of water and turns to leave. "We need to talk, later," he tells her.

"Is it bad?" she asks. The bread is still warm, and there's plenty of butter on it.

He shrugs.

"All right. We'll talk about it later."

He nods and leans down to kiss her temple. She refuses to let herself think of what the issue could be and focuses instead on eating the bread and getting dressed for the day so that she can talk to Moblit about her more recent (safe) experiments.

* * *

Levi wants to kick something hard enough that it flies over Wall Rose.

Erwin is a smart man, and Levi usually likes him, but his response to Hange being pregnant was not what Levi wanted to hear.

He hears it over and over in his head like some kind of sick echo: _"We don't have enough soldiers. You know I can't take her off active duty right now."_

Thinking about Hange being on active duty while pregnant bothers him way more than it should; maybe she won't even care. Maybe the exercise will be good for her or some shit, though he doubts it.

Even though he knows it makes him a fucking idiot, a small part of him had hoped that Hange could be a part of him he'd never actually had: a real fucking place in the world with some kind of sense of fucking _normalcy_.

It makes him think of the handle of a brand-new teacup breaking off in his hand; of course he wasn't fucking good enough to drink tea. Naturally a stupid kid born to no one in particular and raised by questionable characters as he flitted about the underground wasn't ever supposed to _touch_ something like a nice teacup, let alone _own_ it. Of course it had broken and spilled the tea all over his clothes.

He hates thinking about that stupid teacup, because it hurts a little bit, even years later. He's been denied a lot of stupid shit in his life, but a modicum of normality is all that he wants, and he's not allowed to fucking have it.

He knows they're in the middle of more than just a fucking war with the titans, but he still hates that they need Hange to help them fight.

She's fucking pregnant and it's _his_, and how is he supposed to keep an eye on her if he has his own responsibilities?

The thought makes him feel sick, and he almost hates himself, because he's never worried for Hange's safety this much before.

She can take care of herself, _he knows that_, but _fuck_. What if her gear doesn't fit right? What if she gets so sick that she can't keep moving?

He sees Moblit walking the hall and stops him right there in the corridor and says, "Hange's pregnant."

Moblit's mouth opens and closes, and his eyes go wide. "What?" he manages to ask.

"You fucking heard me. And Erwin's not taking her off active duty."

"_What_?" he asks again, mouth hanging open. "Are you—? But…"

"There aren't enough of us left to spare her skill. So keep a fucking eye on her out on the field in case she gets sick."

"Y-yes! Of course."

Moblit looks worried and Levi takes satisfaction in that. "Good," he says, and heads outside to work himself hard enough that he won't be able to think about the fine fucking mess they're all in, now.

* * *

Hange's sitting on the bed reading a book when Levi opens the door. She looks up to see him practically dripping sweat. She closes the book on her thumb and says, "You're going to catch cold."

"I'm going to run a fucking bath is what I'm going to do. You should join me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He throws one of the towels at her head, and then her nightclothes. "Bring a comb and the soap to the bath in half an hour. It'll take a while to boil enough water."

"All right," she agrees, and he gives her something that's almost a smile before he leaves the room.

She meets him in the bath at the end of the hall half an hour later as promised. The first thing he says when she opens the door is, "Lock the fucking door. We don't want a stupid kid barging in on us."

She smiles and locks it before she sheds her uniform and folds it, setting it next to his. "Looks pretty hot," she tells him.

He gives her a bored look. "No, shitty-glasses, the steam is just for decoration."

She laughs and takes her glasses off, setting them on top of her clothes; they were starting to fog up, anyway. The bathwater _is_ hot, but it feels good after the cold air of the corridor, and she slides in with an appreciative sigh. "This was a good idea."

Levi insists on her getting washed up first, which she thinks is odd because he usually demands the hot water for himself, but she doesn't argue; even though she wants to ask him what it is they need to talk about, she knows Levi will bring it up in his own good time; there is a chance that this bath is his way of making whatever it is he's going to tell her afterward easier to hear.

The thought worries her a little, but she pushes it aside and lets herself enjoy the feeling of his hands in her hair and on her skin. He's careful when he pulls the washcloth over the skin of her belly, even though she's not showing yet, and for some stupid reason, it almost makes her want to cry.

They stay in the bath until the water starts to cool, and then get out and dry off. Levi combs out her hair and takes the towel to it a few times to make sure she won't take ill from sleeping with wet hair, and then combs his own out.

When they get back to Levi's room, she falls onto the bed with a pleased-sounding sigh, but Levi remains standing.

"I talked to Erwin this morning," he says.

She bites her lower lip, chews on it for a moment. "It was bad."

"You have to stay on active duty."

She rolls over onto her back and puts her glasses on the bedside table before she blinks up at the ceiling. "I kind of figured he'd say that," she offers after a moment.

"He says he can't do without your skill right now."

"The sad thing is that I'm not so very skilled." She smiles a little.

"You don't get to be a squad leader for no reason, Hange," he tells her. He's still standing, pacing the small room. "But it's bullshit. All of it. Fucking bullshit."

"Why are you so upset?" She had known from the moment she'd told him that she was pregnant that she wouldn't be allowed to go off-duty to deliver a baby. There just weren't enough people left in the Survey Corps after Annie's little rampage and all of the things that had happened immediately afterward.

"Because it's fucking _dangerous_," he almost hisses at her. "I know you need glasses to see, but _fuck_, Hange—are you _blind_?"

"I'm not stupid," she tells him, her voice flat. "I just expected that to be Erwin's stance. What did _you_ expect? That he'd hand you some vine and congratulate you?"

"That's not what I fucking expected."

"But you wanted him to say something different." Enough that not hearing what he wanted upset him. "It isn't like you to get your hopes up."

"Don't I fucking know it." Levi lets out a loud sigh through his nose and takes a deep breath. "I just wanted him to take you off active duty."

"Why?" she asks. "Other than the danger of going on an expedition, obviously." She understands his disappointment, but not his anger. What good did it ever do to get angry about something that couldn't be changed, anyway?

His hands clench and he comes to stand beside the bed. "I thought—I wanted—"

Hange has never heard him struggle to find words before; his typical mannerisms usually result in him spouting out something crude but efficient.

"You're the closest thing to a fucking normal existence that I have, shitty-glasses. Am I supposed to be fucking happy that you're pregnant and now you have to risk your life just like every other dumbass in the Survey Corps? _Two_ lives," he corrects himself. He breaks eye contact and stares at the bookshelf that sits close to the foot of the bed, a muscle working in his jaw. "I thought if I ever found someone I could stand to be with long enough to get around to fucking them, that I'd have something worth offering, like a safe fucking place for my wife."

Hange stares at him, openmouthed, for a long moment, her heart beating too hard in her chest. "Levi," she finally whispers, and when he turns to look at her, she touches his arm. "We're not married," she tells him, gently.

"Like hell we're not," he mutters, and sits on the edge of the bed.

She just smiles and moves over so that he can get into bed properly.

After Levi blows the candle out, he pulls the blankets up around his shoulders and instead of turning away from her, he faces her, takes her head in his hands and kisses her like he means it. When he pulls away, he takes her hand and just holds it, eyes closing.

"I'm so fucking tired," he says.

"Good night," she offers, and he grunts an acknowledgement, but she can't sleep. She blames Levi for it, for saying silly things and making her feel more cared about than usual. He's usually so focused on other things that she can't really recall him saying many overtly nice things about her; he's never even called her beautiful, and she's okay with that.

Other women are beautiful.

Hange Zoë is, well, nothing special to look at. She knows it and is relieved that Levi has never said something so silly to her; it would be a lie and she wouldn't know what to do if Levi lied to her.

She squeezes his hand and whispers, "Hey. Levi?"

He sighs and opens one eye. "What?"

She blushes against her will and she's glad he probably can't see it with the thin moonlight coming in the window on the other side of the room. "Did you mean it? The wife thing?"

"We're not married," he whispers.

"Yeah. But it's kind of a nice thought, right?"

"Marriage?"

"Yeah. In a normal world. A titan-free one."

He closes his eye and squeezes her hand back. "We're not lucky enough to get that," he tells her. "We get this instead. Whatever this is."

She pulls their joined hands up to her lips and presses a kiss to the back of his. "This can be whatever we want it to."

* * *

_Clouds with rage, and  
Storms will race in,  
But you will be safe  
In my arms._

* * *

**End Notes**: This story came to me very quickly and so naturally that it was almost frightening. But this is my first foray into the land of SnK/AoT fanfiction, so any critique/advice that you may have to offer on my writing and/or characterization would be lovely. As easily as this came to me, I'll admit I did struggle a bit with Levi and Hange's characterization; opinions are beyond welcome on that front.

As far as Erwin goes, this is meant to take place around the current events in the manga (Chapters 55-57), so Erwin is missing his right arm and there isn't much left of the Survey Corps. I'm labeling this story as canon divergent because the Survey Corps are considered traitors in the current canon, and in here they're not.


	2. Dreams May Not Come True

**Dreams May Not Come True**  
**Chapter Two: Dreams May Not Come True**

**Notes: **That's right! This is the title chapter. Again,special thanks goes out to Hubedihubbe on Tumblr.

* * *

The wintertime passes quickly. Because of the possibility of bad weather, expeditions are very short when they happen at all. For the most part, the Survey Corps spends the winter months training and doing meaningless physical labor to appease nearby villages and towns. No matter how hard they try, though, they are still a waste of space and not worth the taxes people pay.

Since his first expedition outside Wall Maria, Levi has hated listening to people talk shit about the Corps. Ignorance is understandable, but it's not an excuse, and it only makes him angrier now that Hange is pregnant and stuck working.

The work they do is simple: usually gathering firewood or moving bricks. Occasionally they dig graves for those who catch illness and die.

After one particularly nasty outbreak, they spend four days digging graves for way too many people—many of them children.

Hange, who has always managed to keep her emotions held back in public, breaks down when she has to shovel dirt onto the kids' bodies.

She apologizes that very night, says, "I'm so sorry, Levi," but it's not as if she has to be sorry; he doesn't blame her, anyway.

He murmurs, "That's how I lost my mother."

"To an epidemic?"

"I don't know. She hacked up a lot of blood."

"I'm sorry," she says again.

"Happened a long fucking time ago."

"That doesn't make it suck less."

She's right, of course. He still can't think too much about the people whose faces are fading from his memory; it's sad and it's horrible, but it's also life. People die and people are born and the sun keeps coming up in the morning because time doesn't fucking stop to allow anyone time to mourn.

"Don't be sorry for crying today," he tells her. "It was fucking horrible."

And he's not sure what's worse: the fact that so many kids were dead or the fact that the ground was still mostly frozen and they'd had to store the bodies outside to protect those who hadn't taken ill, yet.

"I'll blame the pregnancy hormones," she whispers, and pulls him into a kiss.

When Hange wraps one of her legs over his to pull him closer, he can feel the bump of her belly between them.

It's both terrifying and fascinating to him at once, and almost without realizing it, he finds one of his hands settling there, fingers brushing over the fabric of her shirt.

* * *

The best estimate for a due date that Hange can give is the month of July; she remembers a couple of times in October that she had slept with Levi, and she had started to get sick at the beginning of that same month.

The nausea and morning sickness go away after the first few months, and then her only issue with staying in the Corps while pregnant is her weight.

She's always been a little too thin, but suddenly she finds that she has curves in all the wrong places; her pants still fit, for the most part, but her shirts can't come close to buttoning and she has to adjust her harness; the weight of her 3DMG on her hips feels weird.

She's never been overly afraid for her own life, but suddenly she finds herself hesitant to use her 3DMG without other people around, and she prefers someone who will be able to intervene should something go wrong, like Levi or Erwin. Someone who won't hurt themselves trying to catch her.

The early spring nights are way too cold and Hange takes up more of the bed than she used to. Levi hogs all the blankets to himself and one night she wakes up cold enough to steal them back.

"Stop stealing all the blankets," she whines, prying them out of his grip.

"It's _my_ bed," he mutters.

"And _both_ of our blankets."

"Then don't sleep so far away," he tells her, clearly still more than half asleep.

"I'm not."

Even though her voice is just a whisper, he turns over to face her and rubs her belly. "Better?" he asks.

She kisses his face and brushes his hair back and just smiles when his hand stays right on top of her stomach.

* * *

The rounder Hange gets, the more people stare.

Hange still theorizes titan-related things, but by the time May rolls around, all she talks about is the baby. She starts to grab the hands of the younger recruits whether they want to feel the baby move around or not; she writes down all kinds of things about her pregnancy: guesses about the gender, her mood, how much weight she gains every week.

It's all kind of endearing. Sometimes Levi reads her notes—rolls his eyes at the exclamation points.

It's strange, he thinks, that pregnancy suits her; after the morning sickness finally disappeared, she went back to being cheerful most of the time. The two missions the Survey Corps had been on were mildly successful; if nothing else, they'd brought back some food.

It's easy to feel better about the whole pregnancy thing because Hange is so excited by everything about it. Even when the baby kicks her hard she laughs and grins and writes it all down.

"I can't believe I ever got sick at the smell of eggs," she tells him one morning over breakfast. "I can't eat enough eggs, now."

"I noticed." He touches her stomach. "I can't believe there's a fucking baby in there."

"Right?" she asks, and grins.

* * *

The idea of motherhood is terrifying to Hange, but she likes challenges and she thinks if she considers being a _good_ mother—not like her own—a challenge, then she'll do all right.

She tells Levi a little about her parents when they're standing outside just watching the sky. The only reason she mentions them at all is because she hates the idea of letting them have the baby.

"They're not terrible people or anything," she says, the pinky finger of her left hand hooking around his right. "It's just—they're not good parents."

"And we will be?" he asks.

She thinks long and hard about it, and finally says, "Yeah. Because we have something my parents didn't have."

"What's that?"

"Respect."

"Oh?"

Levi's never pried into her life, so she knows she can just shake her head and he'll let it go, but she's having a baby with him and she doesn't think it'll hurt to tell him the biggest reason she doesn't want to leave their child with her family.

"You've never punched me in the face for disagreeing with you," she says, keeping her voice neutral.

"What?" he asks.

She decides not to elaborate; that's enough. It's all he needs to know about that. "We don't always agree on everything, but we usually reach compromises without any violence."

"You hit me with a fucking pillow this morning."

She tweaks his nose. "For stealing all of the blankets _again_," she reminds him.

"Hmph."

"I know we can't keep it, forever."

Levi is silent; he just watches her carefully.

"For a while, maybe a year but certainly no more than two—and only if I can feed it. You know, sometimes women can't? But if I can, I think I'll have a case to keep it around for a while. But then…"

"Then it will have to go to someone else." It isn't exactly hurt that she hears in his voice. Maybe it's regret.

Someone else will raise it and care for it and it won't be them.

"Yeah," she says with a sigh, and leans against him. "It's already—I don't know. Maybe it's stupid, but it's like I know this kid already."

She's already attached and she knows she's going to regret it when she's holding a toddler and she has to hand it over to someone else.

She hates the thought so much that her stomach hurts just thinking about it, but at the same time it makes her want to work harder to erase titans from the world. If the titans disappear, then they can keep the baby forever.

* * *

He finds that he likes just looking at her, sometimes, as she sits on his bed reading a book, wearing just her underwear and an unbuttoned shirt.

"You look nice like that," he tells her one afternoon in late May when he can't stop thinking about it even though he's supposed to be writing out reports for Erwin.

"Huh?" She looks up from her book, glasses slipping down her nose.

He gives her a smirk. "You heard me, shitty-glasses."

"I almost missed that stupid nickname," she says, nose crinkling when her lips turn up in a smile.

"No you fucking didn't," he shoots back. "Finish your book on soybeans or whatever."

She rolls her eyes and holds up the book. "It's about childbirth."

"Fun."

"Yeah. Apparently it's really painful."

"Lucky you."

"After fighting titans I don't think squeezing a baby out from between my legs is going to be that difficult. You might want to steer clear, though."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because a clean freak like you wouldn't be able to stand the bloody mess, that's why."

She laughs when he crumples up one of the discarded drafts of his report and throws it at her head.

He turns away and smiles, just a little, as he finishes the writing he needs to do.

Later, when they're in bed, he kisses the back of her neck and just holds her because it's what he wants to fucking do. The baby moves under his hand, and it's such a surreal thing he's not sure how he's supposed to feel about it.

A fucking child made up of one part clean-freak and one part shitty-glasses.

"Zoë?" he murmurs.

"You never call me that," she whispers back, voice thick with sleep.

He wants to say, _"Let's get married,"_ but he can't; his vocal cords lock up, and he knows how selfish marriage is, and how stupid he is for even thinking about it. He's always prided himself on keeping his emotions pushed to the back of his head, but it's suddenly hard to do with Hange around; he cares about her too much and he's not even sorry for it.

A thousand thoughts run through his head of things he wants to say to her. He wants the baby. He wishes that marriage were something they could have together even though he knows it's a stupid idea. Never in his life has he wished for normalcy more.

He fucking loves her and that stupid baby he's only felt bump against his hand.

Hange's voice wavers a little as she tilts her head back. "Levi?"

He realizes he's been quiet for a long time.

He rubs her belly a bit and says, "I hope the fucking kid gets your nose."

"What a horrible thing to say," she teases him, but hums in amusement.

"Shut up, Zoë. I like your weird fucking nose."

She puts her hand on top of his and intertwines their fingers.

* * *

They are both awakened a few hours later when bells begin to toll and men run down the halls of the barracks shouting.

Levi wakes first, practically leaping out of bed, and Hange stirs when she feels his hand on her shoulder.

"What is it?" she asks, sliding off of the bed.

Levi just shakes his head.

The door slams open and it's one of the kids. "Titans. Inside the walls. Again."

And then the kid's gone and Levi is handing Hange her clothes and pulling his on, too.

They dress with the practiced ease of veteran soldiers and Levi checks Hange's harness straps to make sure they're all right.

"Be careful," he says, and pulls her down to kiss the corner of her mouth.

She touches his hair, and he touches her belly, and she says, "You, too."

Then the door opens to the corridor and they are both swept away in the chaos.

* * *

Hange kills four titans on the open field and then her squad is surrounded. One titan per person, or close to it. She licks her dry lips and orders everyone to attack. Someone will probably die. She's used to it.

She's lived too long in this stupid world where almost everyone she's ever cared about has already died. What's a few more, huh? What's another squad member? Another person under her protection—another life she's supposed to be keeping an eye on?

She thinks for a moment that it won't be Moblit; he's been around a long time.

But so was Mike.

And Nanaba.

And Auruo and Petra and Gunter and Erd.

As the titans close in, Hange thinks about her squad, but she doesn't think about herself—doesn't imagine for even a moment that her own life might be taken from her.

Her hook catches in the back of a fifteen-meter class, and she lifts her blades as the wire retracts. Her eyes travel briefly from her airborne position to her squad. They're doing fine. She almost sighs in relief, but it catches in her throat as her wire suddenly snaps down.

There isn't time to make a sound; she tries to retract the wire and shoot it back out again to slow her fall, but she's not sure if she's successful; she hits the ground so hard it makes her retch.

There are voices and hands on her shoulder and Moblit—she thinks it's Moblit, or maybe it's Armin—is speaking. There's something trickling down the left side of her face—probably blood from the broken glass.

Someone lifts her goggles off of her head. "Squad Leader?"

She wants to answer, but all she can do is groan.

"Hey," the voice says again. "Squad Leader? Hange?"

She manages a jerky nod of her head and finds her voice. "I'm okay," she rasps out.

The voice laughs in disbelief, and she knows now that it's Moblit. "No, Squad Leader. You're not okay."

Hange shakes her head. "No, I'm all right. Who's dead?"

"We're all here," Moblit tells her.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She's so relieved she almost cries, but she knows she needs to get to her feet; she'll not be a liability to anyone, ever, least of all her own squad. She doesn't think she can live with herself if she loses many more people she cares about, and she cares too much about everyone.

"Not safe here," she says as her stinging hands try to push her up.

"No!" Moblit says. "Stop—no. Stay still!"

"What?" she asks. "Are you fucking _mad_?" She struggles against him when he wraps an arm around her chest from behind, pulling her down.

"Stay _still_," he insists, grip tightening on her. "Armin, help me out, will you?"

"Hange," Armin says, "we'll help you back to a safer place. You might have a concussion or something. Broken bones."

"Let us help you. The others will cover for us."

She bites her lip. "I look like shit, don't I." Her vision is swimming and she hurts all over, but she can see where her skin is rubbed raw and her clothes are filthy.

"Yeah," Armin says. "You do."

Hange laughs, but it sounds more like a croak. "Fine," she agrees. "But if anything goes wrong, don't risk your own lives to—"

"Yeah," Moblit says, but she's not sure if he's just acknowledging her request or if he's agreeing to it.

* * *

Levi and his squad take out fifteen titans before they stop coming. Some of the kids are arguing about where they've come from, if it's another incident like the one that happened to Connie's village; or maybe it's actually a hole this time.

Erwin rides up with an escort around noon and says that the Garrison fanned out along the entire wall at record speed and haven't found a single hole; titans, though, they did run into—one or two, no more. They managed to kill them.

Levi turns his horse back and Erwin leans over and reaches out with his arm to take one of Levi's reins, pulling back on it to gently turn his horse toward him.

"Levi," is all Erwin says.

And Levi's mouth goes dry. "What is it?" He's almost proud that his voice sounds as it always does.

The others, already riding ahead, look over their shoulders; Levi ignores them.

Erwin's pale eyes flicker; Levi knows the look, understands it because he's seen it a million times before. It's the look Erwin always wears before he's about to say something horrible, before he's about to present a grieving mother with the bloody hand of her son. There's no easy way to say it. There never is.

"There was an accident," Erwin finally tells him.

It takes every ounce of Levi's personal restraint to keep from digging his heels into his mare's sides, to keep from heading back to headquarters at a full gallop. "And?" he asks, and this time his voice does waver.

"Hange seems to be okay. She's resting."

Levi spits out a, "Tch," because he's suddenly able to breathe again. Why the fuck would Erwin act like she was dead or dying if she was resting in a safe place?

Erwin lets go of the rein, and both of them head back to the temporary camp together.

He finds Hange in the medical tent sitting on a pallet on the floor next to someone who is missing their foot. He wants to move her somewhere else—somewhere far away from things that are too close to death. She looks almost like she did the day before—round belly and all—except for the bruises.

"Hey," he says, touching her hair.

"I feel like shit," she tells him.

"I'm surprised you can feel anything at all."

She gives him a flat look. "It all hurts. I'm like a giant bruise right now."

He gives a nod but doesn't look her over—not here in this stupid place. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure. A titan grabbed the cable? Or maybe fell on it, or stumbled into it; I can't remember." She shrugs, but the movement makes her wince. "I just want to sleep."

"Have you eaten?"

"I'm not hungry."

"I'm going to go talk to Erwin. Maybe he'll fucking listen to me."

"About what?"

He's quiet for a moment. "I don't think there are any more titans to get rid of. He won't have one fucking good excuse to keep you here."

"Could be an emergency."

"You're not fucking fighting." What he can see of her left side is bruised; she had probably landed there the hardest.

She flashes him a bit of a smile. "Let me know what he says, then."

* * *

Erwin's easy to find; he shoos everyone else away as soon as he lifts his eyes and sees Levi standing there.

"I'm taking her back."

Erwin just stares at him for a long moment before he sits on the edge of a makeshift table. "Yes. I think you should."

The fact that Erwin agrees so easily doesn't sit well with Levi. He knows he should run out there, get a wagon ready, and get Hange the fuck away from this stupid campsite, but something stops him. Maybe it's the look in Erwin's eyes. It might be pity, and the thought makes Levi feel sick.

"She's fine," he almost snaps. "I just spoke with her."

"That's good," Erwin tells him. "But there's something you should know."

"What."

"There was blood."

Levi doesn't know why the fuck that's so surprising. Of course there was blood; she'd fallen to the ground and her goggles had broken. "All right," he says.

It's obvious that Erwin wants to say more, but he closes his jaw. "Stay with her for a couple of days," he says. "We'll take care of things here."

* * *

The ride back is long but quiet; Hange lies down in the back of the wagon and dozes on and off for the handful of hours it takes to get back to headquarters.

When they get inside, Levi gets water ready for a bath. Hange sits on a bench by the wall, her green cloak pulled tightly around her. The barracks are practically deserted, but he locks the door anyway before he helps Hange up from the bench. The pads of her fingers are red and he's not sure if she'll be able to get her harness or the buttons undone, so he works at them slowly.

She wriggles out of her own pants, and when Levi takes them from her, he sees the brownish stain that can only be blood.

Hange doesn't seem to notice. She takes her underwear off and he notices there's blood there, too.

There's not a lot of it, just a little, but it still makes his insides twist in worry. It's obviously not her monthly cycle here to grace her.

"Erwin agreed to let me come back," she says, softly, "because the medics think I might go into labor soon."

And a potential fucking battleground isn't the place for that.

"And this is fucking normal?"

She pauses before she sinks down into the hot water; it obviously hurts, but she doesn't comment on it. "No," she finally admits. "The fall might have…sped things up a bit."

It's almost June, but it's still too early. "Shouldn't you be in the fucking medical wing or something?"

"If labor doesn't start within a couple of days, then yeah."

That's why Erwin wants him to stay with her, then. Either that, or the man feels sorry for both of them. The idea of Hange having to make her way to the medical wing on her own makes him clench his jaw.

He lets it go, settles behind her and concentrates instead on getting the dirt off of her skin and out of her hair.

Her left side has a smattering of bruises; her cheekbone, the outside of her elbow and forearm, her belly, and part of her leg. Levi's careful as he washes her, but she still squirms a little. She's almost dozing in the water by the time he finishes with her.

"Hey," he says, pressing his lips to the back of her shoulder. "Shitty-glasses. Don't fall asleep in the bath."

"I'm tired."

He stands behind her, hooks his arms under hers and pulls her up.

She stumbles a little getting to her feet, but stays still as he dries her off and hands her the shirt she's been wearing to bed since the nights had grown warmer.

The sleeves of the stupid thing come down to her elbows, and the neck is too wide, but it's big enough to accommodate her belly.

He dries off while she pulls on a clean pair of underwear and tugs the shirt over her head. When they're both dressed, Hange heads to his room and he heads to the kitchens to find something to eat.

She's asleep by the time he makes it to his room, and he slides in bed beside her and just watches her sleep for a long time. Eventually he blows out the candle and settles against her side, one hand on her belly, the other beneath his head.

For some reason, it doesn't feel the same, but Hange is warm and her breathing is deep and even and comforting, and he finds himself lulled to sleep.

* * *

_Rains will pour down,  
Waves will crash all around,  
But you will be safe  
In my arms._

* * *

**End Notes**: I can't imagine that the Survey Corps goes out in the wintertime if it snows much in the area. It would impede their horses but probably wouldn't manage to slow down the titans. Here I imagined a scenario where they're put to work to kind of appease those who think they suck up tax money and do nothing all winter.

I always assumed that Hange would be rather "eh" on pregnancy, but that if she _did_ get pregnant, she'd _love_ it because it'd just be _so fucking interesting_ to her.

Hange has the best nose. I get so sad when artists draw it wrong. It's such a cute defining feature!

I'm not sure if Hange and Levi sound too lovey-dovey or not. Obviously in a pregnancy 'fic like this one, it's important that they're romantically involved, but it's hard to pinpoint how they might act. I doubt Levi would curb his language at all, but beyond that I was adrift, here. What do you guys think?


	3. But You Are Never All Alone

**Dreams May Not Come True**

**Chapter Three: But You Are Never All Alone**

**Notes**: One last time: a special thank-you to Hubedihubbe on Tumblr for giving me permission to write this story based off of a comic they drew. You can find a link to the comic in my profile. And thanks to Forced Simile for looking over the first draft of this chapter for me.

* * *

Hange wakes in the morning feeling sore, but she's not tired anymore, and she's not disoriented or dizzy or nauseous. Levi is gone, but she assumes he'll be back soon. She makes her way over to his desk and sits down with a sigh.

Erwin will want reports of what happened the day before, and she'll write them while she's able.

It is in the middle of her last paragraph that she stops suddenly, stops and the quill falls from her fingers and splatters ink all over the page. She stares out of the window for what seems like only a few minutes, but is probably much longer; she doesn't even look away when she hears the door open and close.

"Hange?"

It's Levi's voice, but she doesn't turn to look at him.

"I can't…" She doesn't know how to say it, doesn't know if it even _matters_. For every bad possibility that flashes through her mind, another comes by to counter it.

"Can't what?" he asks and moves closer to the desk. "Can't fucking write without making a mess? I can see that."

"No," she whispers. "I can't feel the baby move."

The only sound in the room is of the plate he's holding when he places it on the desk.

She looks at Levi only when he sighs through his nose. "Well," he tells her, "maybe you just can't feel it over the rest of the pain. I'm surprised your writing is remotely fucking legible considering how bad your hands look."

He grabs her right hand and turns it over as if to prove to her that her own hand looks bad. She stares down at the scraped skin and tries to convince herself that he's right, but as much as she cares for him, as much as she trusts him, she just can't seem to do it.

* * *

Levi fucking knows. He knows the minute Hange says she can't feel the baby, because he remembers the night before and how something didn't feel right, and now he knows what it is; he couldn't feel the baby, either, hadn't felt a kick or a rustle of movement or anything.

It makes him feel sick. He convinces Hange to try eating something, makes a sarcastic comment about how he'll re-write her report for her when hell fucking freezes over, and then grabs the dirty laundry and promises to be back in a couple of hours.

It's a shitty excuse, but he has to get away for a bit.

He finds himself scrubbing their clothes too hard and the lye makes his hands sting, but he _has to get the fucking bloodstains out of her clothes_. It comes out of her pants easily enough; the fabric is durable if nothing else. But it takes forever to get the blood out of her underwear, and even when he's done he's not entirely sure that the fabric is white.

He makes himself rinse the clothes off, hangs them up on one of the barren clotheslines, and then finds himself in the medical wing.

They're short-staffed because everyone else is still out scouting, but they have a competent enough group.

Levi finds the person in charge: a stocky woman with grey hair pulled back at the nape of her neck. She tells him that her name is Verna, and he says he doesn't give a damn.

She laughs, but he watches the smile fall away from her face when he tells her about Hange: about the accident and the bruising and the blood and the baby.

By the time he leaves he knows what's going on.

The baby's probably dead. As big as Hange's belly was—_is_, he reminds himself—it wasn't enough to protect their child, not after a fall like that, not after the bruising all down her left side.

Verna tells him that it's better if Hange stays optimistic. "Don't tell her. If she starts grieving before she goes into labor, then she might not be able to pull herself together enough to push. And she _has_ to push. She has to deliver or it will kill her."

Levi wants to snap at her, because Hange's pulled herself through some horrible shit in the past, but he doesn't say anything. How can he? He can guess Hange's reaction to a lot of things, but he can't imagine how she's going to react to this. This isn't a fellow soldier, this isn't a captured titan slaughtered in the night; this isn't even the death of a friend.

It's a child—hers. _Theirs_.

"If she doesn't give birth in a couple of days, we'll have to induce labor," Verna tells him. He knows she's trying to be tactful, trying to be gentle, but all he's thinking about is the fact that the baby's probably dead.

He hates being right about shit like this, hates that the minute Hange had said she couldn't feel the baby that he just _knew_ what was wrong.

"Is there a chance?" he asks, careful to keep his voice neutral. It comes out sounding dead and dried like crunchy autumn leaves underfoot.

Verna puts a hand to her cheek and gives him a sympathetic look. "A very small one."

"I see." He pushes all his walls back into place; he's not going to get his fucking hopes up about this, because it'll just hurt more than it already fucking does.

And Hange—_God_.

He wonders if she's put the pieces together, if she knows that the baby's dead inside of her. He remembers her blank-eyed stare out of the window in his room and leaves the medical wing.

It doesn't matter if she knows or not; whether the baby is alive or dead, she still has to give birth, still has to push it out of her like it's alive, like she's going to be rewarded for her effort. Except that she won't. They'll take the lump of flesh away and dispose of it somewhere else.

Levi's stomach twists, and he tries not to think about the books that Hange has filled with her observations about the baby, but he can't filter it all, and some things make it through: _Levi's nose,_ and _I wonder if it can hear me talking to it_, and _I'm going to die if I don't get some spinach; I can't wait to find out if the baby likes spinach!_

* * *

The day passes quietly with Hange staying busy to keep her mind off of things. People always say that she overthinks everything. For the first time in her life she doesn't want to think about anything at all. By the time she crawls into bed with Levi, her back is aching and she lies down with her feet propped up on an extra pillow, hoping it will help.

It's not a cold night, but she pulls the blankets up to her chin anyway.

Levi faces her and tells her good night by kissing the bridge of her nose where her glasses usually sit; he falls asleep with one hand under his head and the other resting palm-down on the left side of her chest.

She knows he knows.

She tries to be positive but she hasn't felt the baby move even once since her accident. Something's wrong, because the baby always kicks too hard, kicks like it wants out, kicks her like Levi kicked Eren at the trial what seems like an eternity ago. That the baby is suddenly not moving at all means—what?

She isn't sure, but she's afraid to find out. She forces herself to think of the positives, but it's hard because Levi's hand is on her chest instead of her belly, and she doesn't feel the weird movements of the baby, and she just feels sick.

She knows there's only one outcome, only one thing to expect when there's an accident and blood and then the baby stops moving, but maybe things will be okay. Maybe she will go into labor and she will have the baby and she'll find out all of the little things about it that she's wanted to know since she managed to stop puking long enough to think about them.

Thoughts of a baby with Levi's slightly upturned nose and his dark hair and her dark eyes are what eventually help her get to sleep.

* * *

They both wake up in the middle of the night when Hange's water breaks. Hange stirs and mumbles, "Huh?" but Levi shoots straight up in bed, saying,

"The fuck?"

"Oh," she whispers, propping herself up on her elbows. "My water broke. I think."

Levi stumbles out of bed and manages to light the candle. When he holds it close, Hange lifts up the blankets and that's what it looks like: like her water's broken.

"Should I get changed?" she asks, and he shoots her an odd look.

"Why? You're just going to get gross again anyway."

He throws on his clothes and helps her out of bed. For the first time he thinks she looks awkward wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and underwear.

"There's time," she reassures him, swallowing hard, eyebrows creasing together. "Nothing interesting happens until the contractions are—"

"It's better to be safe than fucking sorry," he says, and takes her hand to pull her out of the door.

* * *

The contractions hurt when they come, but they're tolerable. She's been grabbed by a titan and she's fallen way too far and she's had her body smashed into trees and seen far too many people die.

Natural pain is almost a relief, and she gets through it by shutting up and telling herself, _this is normal, this is normal, this is normal_.

Levi wakes Verna up, and not kindly. She tells Hange to stay standing, to walk around a bit until her contractions are close together. "It's good to stay upright for a while; it helps you feel like you're in control."

Hange supposes that, if nothing else, it gives her the chance to focus on putting one foot in front of the other instead of thinking of other things.

* * *

Hange only offers Levi the chance to leave once.

He doesn't fucking take it. He's not going to leave her alone while she goes through this, no matter what the end result is.

So he walks with her up and down the halls, lets her lean on him when she needs to, and helps her back to the medical wing when her contractions are too close together for him to feel all right with her walking all over the place.

He helps her into a bed by the one tall window in the room and Levi notices that the sun is already rising; the thin white curtains glow almost gold. More people come in and Levi doesn't know what to do, so he stands at the front of the bed gripping Hange's right hand in both of his.

She doesn't cry from the pain, and she doesn't yell at him. She just groans and sighs out of her nose—whimpers a little bit, once or twice.

Hours pass; he remembers her telling him once that some women stay in labor for more than a full day, but it feels too long, and her hair is sweaty and she looks tired. He pulls her hair back for her, but it's sloppy and he misses some of it.

"Come on," Verna says, rubbing Hange's belly. "You have to push again."

Hange nods and does her best, but she's out of breath and frustrated and scared, and it's obvious, at least to Levi. She usually hides anything that doesn't count as egotistical enthusiasm from everyone with a smile or some stupid comment about titans or plants. He's never seen her look so exposed, so raw, before.

He's not sure when she starts to crack, but she starts blinking as if she's got something in her eyes, and he knows tears are threatening to spill over. She doesn't say anything at first; she pushes when Verna tells her to and rests in between contractions, tries to catch her breath.

She tries to push the baby's shoulders through and she almost can't seem to do it. The effort makes her groan in pain or something else, and when the urge to push passes, she lies back again. Levi takes his handkerchief to her sweaty face, and she cranes her neck to look at him.

"Why am I even _doing_ this?" she asks, voice cracking even as her voice gets louder. She sounds almost crazy as she tries to untangle her right hand from his. "You know, don't you? Levi? I know you know."

"Hange—"

"No! I know, I do." She takes her hand back and sits up to wrap both of her arms around her stomach.

It looks so protective it makes his heart sink.

"You wouldn't touch it last night, so I know that you know this is all for nothing."

She rocks back and forth, makes the worst fucking sound Levi's ever heard in his life—something so forlorn he can't even place it.

Verna says, "Squad Leader Hange, you need to—!"

"I don't want to! I'm so _tired_ of _hurting_!"

Levi knows she's not talking about the contractions or the pushing or the sweat or anything superficial and stupid like that.

"Hange," he says, struggling to keep his voice even and neutral and _normal_. He places a hand on her back.

She stops crying, nods to herself as if she's talking herself into doing something, and leans back against the pillows that are propped up against the headboard. Then she just looks at him. Looks and looks and Levi has no idea what it is she sees, or if she even sees anything at all.

"It's dead," she whispers. "I know it's dead."

"Maybe," he admits, pushing her bangs back from her forehead. "You have to push."

Her voice cracks again when she asks, "_Why_?"

Levi looks at Verna's sympathetic face and then back to Hange.

"Because I'm not going to fucking lose you, too, Zoë," he says.

* * *

She pushes until she almost doesn't have any more energy left. The baby doesn't cry when Verna pulls it out, when the airways are cleared, when the cord is cut; there's nothing but the sound of Hange's own breathing. She watches Levi, watches him watch the baby.

When Verna moves away from the foot of the bed, she hardly recognizes her own broken voice as she cries out, scrambling to her knees. All she can think is that they're going to throw her baby away and she didn't even get to see it.

Levi's hand on her shoulder stops her; he looks stricken.

"Let them clean her up first," he tells her, sounding almost gentle.

"A girl?" she asks.

"Yeah." As one of the younger medics come up with wet towels, he adds, "Let them clean you up, too."

She gets off of the bed even though she aches all over. The medics wash the blood off of her, and Levi folds up the soiled sheets and puts them on the ground while an assistant exchanges them for something fresh.

When Hange's tucked back into bed Verna hands her a tiny bundle wrapped up in a blanket.

Hange stares at it even as she takes it carefully in her arms. Stares and bites her lip and touches the little fingers peeking out of the white blanket. The eyes are closed, but there's a sparse bit of hair on the top of the baby's head: dark and soft and Hange swallows hard and holds the baby closer.

A small part of her wants to believe that there's still a chance that her daughter will open her eyes, that she'll start wailing—but the room is silent.

So she holds her little girl and closes her eyes and tries not to think about anything at all.

* * *

Eventually Verna tries to take the baby away from Hange, but she sits up again when she realizes what's happening and shields the baby in her arms and says, "No—no! She's _mine_," as if it will change things.

Levi shoos Verna away with one hand and a look that he doesn't let Hange see, and he sits on the edge of Hange's bed. "Hey," he practically whispers. "You can't hold her forever."

Hange licks her lips, gaze flickering up to meet his. "I know," she says. "But you want to hold her, too. Right?"

He doesn't. He doesn't want to fucking hold his dead daughter.

"When you're done," he tells her instead, and brushes her hair back from her face.

Her eyes are drooping and red from crying and there are dark circles beneath them that would lead anyone to believe she hasn't slept in days. "Just a few more minutes."

She's asleep almost instantly, but Levi gives her the few minutes she's asked for; then he gently pries the baby out of her arms and finds himself holding her. He doesn't want to, but he fucking _needs_ to. She's small and dead and it makes him want to fucking cry because she's got Zoë's stupid nose and his fucking hair and he holds her like he thinks he might break her neck if he does it wrong.

Eventually he hands her over to Verna, hands her over and tells her not to do anything with the body until he can talk to Hange.

While Hange sleeps, he finds a crate to sit on by her bed and watches her while he thinks. He isn't sure how much time passes this way, but when Hange's eyes flutter and she sits up, left hand going to her belly, he's thinking about the fact that nobody's buried in a coffin anymore. Wood is too precious a commodity to waste by shoving it underground.

The room is empty but for the two of them. Hange looks around for a moment, hand sliding off of her still slightly swollen belly to fall to the sheets.

She bites her lip and hesitates, but finally speaks, her voice surprisingly strong. "Where is she?"

Levi doesn't know how to fucking answer her.

"Levi. Hey…"

He doesn't move.

"Where is our child?" When he still doesn't answer, she repeats the question—repeats it over and over again until her sentences are jumbled and her words get mixed into _where,_ and _I want to hold her,_ and _hey_, _Levi_, _please tell me_, her voice cracking and wavering.

She knows the fucking answer. She knows it but she's asking anyway, and he hates it. What does she want from him? Does she want him to unfold his hands from over his mouth and tell her that everything's fine?

She knows it's not fine.

She knows their daughter's dead.

He can't do a fucking thing except cover her hand with his. She's shaking and it makes him feel sick. Her hair's still sweaty and a mess, and he wants to push it back or say something that will make her laugh, but she stares at the far wall and just cries.

She's trying not to. He can tell by the way she clenches her teeth, but tears are sliding down her face, and he can't keep looking at her anymore because his own eyes are too fucking misty and _he's_ trembling.

For the first time in his life, he doesn't know what to do or think or say. He just stays there, sits uselessly on the crate at the side of her bed and tries not to listen to her breathless gasping for air or a miracle or whatever the fuck it is she wants most right now.

* * *

Hange blames herself and Levi tries not to blame Erwin.

It was an accident and it's wrong to blame anyone. It's not Erwin's fault. They're used to accidents. They're used to seeing people die.

But it still fucking hurts.

* * *

The same day she gives birth, Hange goes with Levi to a small, quiet spot in the country. She shouldn't be up and about so soon, but Levi lets her because it's what she wants; she needs to see this done, needs to be there.

Levi digs the hole, gets his clothes filthy and doesn't even give a single fuck.

"Levi," Hange whispers, sitting in the grass holding their daughter.

He looks down at her. "Hm?" He wants to call her shitty-glasses to have their relationship back to normal, but he just can't fucking say it.

"I want to name her." She knows it's stupid but she can't help it. Their daughter looks like them, has little fingers and toes and arms; she spent almost eight months living inside of her, and she deserves a name.

Levi pauses in his work for only a moment, then resumes shoveling the dirt up onto the grass. "It'd better be a good fucking name," he says.

When the hole is finished, Levi sits down next to Hange and holds his arms out.

"What's the name?"

She's holding the baby like it's alive, cradled in her arms, and she swaps with him. Neither of them comment on the fact that their careful handling is stupid and pointless; it still feels natural and important, and maybe that's all that matters.

"Felicity," Hange says when the baby's nestled with her little head in the crook of Levi's arm.

If things were different between them, if Felicity were alive, he'd say something like, _"What? You're not trying to give her a stupid name like Bean?"_ but the thought makes his throat close up. He'd give just about anything to be able to do that.

"I think maybe it'll help us remember her."

He just nods and doesn't comment on the name. Instead he thinks about it as he lowers her into the hole. Hange doesn't watch as he covers the body. She claps one hand over her mouth and cries again. It's not as bad this time. There are no hiccups.

But it hurts. _She_ hurts, and not from giving birth.

Levi finds a large rock and it works well enough as a tombstone. The grave's in the shade of a maple tree; if nothing else he supposes it's a nicer resting place than most.

They leave as the sun is setting.

* * *

The first few weeks are the hardest.

Erwin warns the rest of the Corps in advance of what they might find; when they return to headquarters, no one says a thing.

Armin tries to be helpful by offering to run errands and Moblit hovers too much, but Hange knows they mean well. She almost wishes they'd just ask her about it, though: about her stomach, which has started to flatten out again, about the fading bruises on the left side of her body, about Felicity—but no one asks anything except Erwin.

"Are you all right?" His voice is kind, and his hand is gentle on her shoulder.

She looks him in the eye. "I'll be ready to fight again in two weeks," she says, but her voice cracks on the last word.

* * *

A few days after the birth, Hange complains that her breasts hurt. The comment is an offhand remark, but by the time Levi returns that same afternoon from drilling the kids, she's lying in their bed crying.

She says it's because they hurt so much she just can't stand it, but he's pretty sure it's more than that. He thinks about what she said about how maybe she'd be able to keep the baby if she could feed it, and he knows that what hurts more than the physical pain is the fact that her body is reminding her of what she's lost.

He tugs her shirt up touches the back of his hand to the underside of one of her breasts; it's swollen and hot to the touch, and Hange tries to squirm away from him.

"Stop doing that," he tells her.

"It hurts."

"You're leaking." There's no baby to drink the milk so her breasts just fill up and leak everywhere. A constant reminder. His chest aches and he lowers her shirt again, puts a hand to her forehead. "I think you've got a fever."

She groans, buries her damp face with a pillow, mumbles something he can't hear.

He pats her head through the pillow and stands. "I'll talk to Verna."

He doesn't give her time to answer; he just goes down to the medical wing again, not caring how late in the afternoon it is, and finds Verna hovering at the foot of the bed of a young woman with her head wrapped up in linen cloth.

"Is something wrong?" she asks.

He tells her what's going on and she goes to the back and gets a jar for him.

"It's sage," she explains when he gives her a blank look. "Make tea out of it, make her drink it. Put a head of lettuce in the icehouse and let it get cold; have her put the leaves on her breasts. Heat encourages milk production, so something cooler should help."

He's skeptical, but does what she says; the pain keeps Hange awake at night and sometimes, when she leaks through her shirt, she cries again, but it does help. After a few days the pain lessens, and after two weeks, she stops leaking and the swelling goes down.

* * *

There's a space between them when they sleep where her belly used to be.

Levi wonders if that space would be there had Felicity lived.

* * *

She asks questions at night sometimes.

Other times she just talks, and Levi listens. He rarely has anything to say in response, but it would be stupid of her to expect him to reply. He's hurting, too, after all.

"I really loved her, you know," she whispers one evening when she can't sleep.

Levi's fingers tangle with hers.

"Yeah," he says after a long pause. He squeezes her hand. "I know."

* * *

It's after some vine one afternoon that Hange kisses him like she wants him to fuck her.

He indulges her with the kiss at first because three weeks of being _afraid_ to kiss her is too long.

But then she's pulling him to their bed and her kisses and hands grow more insistent; the longing practically pours off of her and he doesn't understand it at all.

"I think you've had too fucking much to drink," he says, and pushes her back just far enough to get a good look at her face. Her glasses have smudges on them and behind the lenses, her eyes look red—from crying, he realizes.

"No," she insists. "I haven't had enough."

Hange's never been one to drink overmuch, so he asks, "What do you mean?"

"I can't stop thinking about it."

She tries to kiss him again, but his hands stay on her shoulders and prevent her from doing much of anything.

"Levi," she says with a wobbly voice, hands touching his face and his hair and coming to rest on his neck, "I'm sorry for messing up. It won't happen again, I swear. This time I'll be more careful. _Please_." She's crying by the end of it, crying and struggling to get closer to him and he lets her go because he doesn't know what else to do.

She doesn't try to kiss him this time. She just hugs him around the waist, burying her face in his chest.

"Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you, shitty-glasses."

She's quiet for a long time as he rubs her back, but then she whispers, "I want a baby."

He feels fucking horrible for wanting to tell her that she can't have one. Maybe it's him—maybe it's all because of him, his stupid little curse, because Levi isn't allowed to have even small things he decides he wants, like all of his friends alive or a fucking cup of tea or a baby.

She deserves a baby. And so does he. But she can't have one. Not now. Maybe not ever.

He can't say it. She already knows, anyway; she's just heartbroken and looking for something to hold onto.

"Zoë," he says instead, "a new baby won't bring Felicity back."

"I'm sorry. I know that. I just… I just want…"

"It's okay," he tells her. "It's okay. I know."

* * *

Levi hides Hange's folder of baby notes on a high shelf between the two dullest books he can find; he writes "Felicity" on the outside of it just in case.

Hange notices its absence, but doesn't ask after it. She throws herself back into her work, instead.

As the weeks turn into months, Hange loses the extra weight she gained during her pregnancy. The faint stretch marks on her stomach blend in with the other scars; sometimes Levi traces them at night with his fingers or, in more sentimental moments, his mouth.

The first expedition after their loss is hard because of the memories, but Levi adds Felicity's name to the list he keeps in his head; it brings him a small measure of peace. Hange tries to remind herself that she can't have a baby now, but maybe someday she will be able to; she thinks about all the people who have died, and how some were little more than children themselves, and she decides that she's luckier than most.

* * *

Hange comes back to Levi's room one day to find it clean and mostly empty.

There is one piece of paper on the bed. Hange picks it up and follows Levi's carefully-written instructions until she finds herself outside of one of the bigger rooms in the barracks. Confused, she knocks on the door.

"Get your ass in here, shitty-glasses."

Smiling, she opens the door and finds Levi sitting in a chair in front of what she recognizes as the desk originally from his room. Her desk is next to his, and her chair, and all of her books have a place because there are extra shelves. "What's this all about?"

He raises one eyebrow. "Clean your fucking glasses if you can't see properly."

"Nice bed." It's bigger than the usual ones found in the barracks. Their nightclothes are folded and draped over the footboard.

"Since you never sleep in your own fucking room anyway," he says, but he sounds almost affectionate.

She just laughs.

* * *

Late that night, when they're curled up in the middle of the bed, legs tangled and the space between them back to what it used to be, Levi shifts in bed beside her.

"Zoë."

"Yeah?" She opens her eyes to see that he's propped himself up on his elbow.

"There's a lot of stuff we can't have right now, but we could get married."

She doesn't say anything at first; she doesn't know what to say. But eventually her lips quirk up and she murmurs, "I thought you said we already were."

He pokes her face, his expression turning into one of annoyance. "I've been thinking about it, shitty-glasses. It's up to you, because any wedding we have will be shitty."

"Okay."

"We might as well just get married in fucking _uniform_, because we'll probably get called away as soon as it's over to fight titans."

"Okay."

"No flowers, no honeymoon—"

"Okay."

"Look, dumbass, you're not supposed to say _okay_. Give a real fucking answer, would you?"

"Yes."

"Yes you'll give a real fucking answer or yes you're agreeing to—"

She crinkles up her nose and laughs as she pulls Levi down for a kiss. "Yes, I'll spend the rest of my life with you. Let's have a shitty wedding in uniform with no honeymoon and no flowers." When they break apart, she asks, "Why'd you change your mind?"

He closes his eyes and lets out a sigh. "I figured, well, why the fuck not?"

She knows what he's really saying. "Yeah," she whispers, "we won't live forever." She wonders if it matters if they're married or not when they die. No. It won't matter.

"Nothing will change between us, anyway. We'll still have _this_. Whatever the fuck _this_ even is." Levi takes her hand and slides his fingers in between hers.

Caring about someone enough to get married even though technically nothing will change after saying a few words. Hange decides it's a nice thought: marriage.

"Whatever we want it to be, of course," she answers with a smile, and squeezes his hand.

* * *

_Castles, they might crumble,  
Dreams may not come true,  
But you are never all alone,  
'Cause I will always, always love you._

"In My Arms" –Plumb

* * *

**End Notes**:

I'm so fucking sorry. (No I'm not. This story means a lot to me on a personal level.) A little comic drawn by hubedihubbe on Tumblr inspired me to write this; you can find a link to it on my profile. I claim artistic license in my interpretation of their emotionally-charged artwork.

Felicity means "happiness." I thought it went well with Zoë ("life") and Levi ("joined in harmony").

I used Zoë as Hange's first name for several reasons, but I wanted to portray it here as a name Levi doesn't usually use; she's just been Hange for so long to him that he only calls her Zoë under certain circumstances.

Levi's proposal is shit because I can't imagine that he would get sappy just to ask someone to marry him; they either do want to or they don't, so it doesn't matter how it's worded.

Because hubedihubbe mentioned in their comments that Hange and Levi's daughter was a stillborn (and not a miscarriage), I thought I would explain the difference. A miscarriage is when a pregnancy is terminated by the body before 24 weeks (the baby is typically born alive but dies when it can't breathe on its own; a stillbirth is when the baby dies _inside the mother's body_ at or after 24 weeks; on occasion a late miscarriage can be saved, but there is no way to save a stillborn baby because it dies before (or during) labor. (I guess the technical definition is: "Born without showing any signs of life.")

Physical trauma can cause the placenta to disengage from the wall of the uterus; because of this, the baby dies via suffocation. Sometimes there is bleeding. The mother will probably notice that the baby isn't moving as it usually does. Sometimes labor starts on its own within one to three days; other times it must be induced.

I want to add here that stillbirth is fairly uncommon in our modern society.

"In My Arms" is a lovely lullaby. I chose it to represent this story because it's often used by parents _in memoriam_ to their children who were stillborn, lost to miscarriage, or who have died to SIDS. There is a link to it on my profile as well.

Thank you for reading! Feedback/critique/comments would be very much appreciated.


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